"Babe" is fine. I have a tendency to call friends "dear" as well.
I don't really see a problem with "honey", personally, though "sweetie" is a little strange. Just my opinion.
I had a friend in high school who called me "b*tch" as a term of endearment... but then, she was abusive.

I use sweets or honey or any derivatives with my girlfriends all the time and vice versa. I think it's fine.

I usually call my girlfriends hun, babe, love, dear, hahaha skankface! We are so nice to each other sometimes!

i call my friends honey or babe, its just how i am.

Yeah we call eah other hun, hoe, skank, b*tch, homie,love, sweetie, etc. LOL We're all really close so it doesn't hurt our feelings. It's an inside joke thing.

Hmmm I have funny inside joke nicknames for some of my friends I call them on occasion but that's about it.

Me and a friend of mine used to call each other "darling". My mom always used to question me about what guy I was talking to...but it was just my girl...lol

I have petnames for two of my friends, but not all of them.

Shopaholichunny, me too! We call each other skank, hoe, skankster, skanky, love, beautiful and Trashy! Its all in love. lol i love it

I call EVERYONE babe. When meeting new guys I always have to warn them so they do get weird when I refer to them as babe.

I give all people nicknames but my close gf and I have names that date back to high school.

My one friend calls all her gf "miss". I call her "Miss Chris" cause she was always a "flygirl" Which also relates to our love of the sone "Miss Thang" by Monica. There is a story behind all of our names for each other

I hate being called babe or baby by anyone, it just irritates me. I tend to vary between sunshine, chickadee and sweetheart. I have friends who call me hon or honey, which doesn't bother me at all. We have inside jokey nicknames too, but those are more sort of inside names and not for everyone.

I call her "girl". As in, "hey, girl."

But that's it.

nicknames for girlfriends, to me, is a little middle school. it might be funny once, but all the time is too much.

I don't use pet names for friends really. Most of my friends do. But there is this girl that works with me and I really don't even know her and she calls me sweetie every time she seems me (and she positively knows my name) and I HATE it. It makes me uncomfortable.

Now if it's an older person for some reason it doesn't bother me.

We started calling each other "pumpkin" or "pumpkinbutt" in college and it stuck. We even refer to each other's daughters by the term. What is so funny about it is the friend who chose the name is a very serious art history professor at an expensive liberal arts university. Her students would never believe it.

I hate using pet names for girls. If someone who isn't a family member calls me "sweetie" or "honey" or "babe" it makes me want to smack them.

i hate when people say hun. it sounds like.. fake and condescending.

Sure. My friends call me girl, girlie, sweetie, cutie, hun, etc. Young and Old

I call my very good friends pet names all the time. Definitely, hun and sometimes sweetie. But only my good friends. It seems condescending if you don't really know the person.

yeah me and my friends call each other pet names like honey, baby, babe, sweetie but only close friends male or female

I usually just call my friends by some variation of their first name...no pet names for us.

I'll call girl friends...Sexy, skank, wh*re, love, or best. That's about it. Or a nickname that's just a shortened version of their actual name.

I call my best friend pet names and other nicknames we have for each other.

I hate when people call me hun or dear so I don't use them for other people. I think the point of a pet name is too be something unique that only the other person knows and you only use in private.

i call my best friends love, dear, and darling
i think its fine. its just showing that i care about them

I call one of my bf's hot mama and she called me skankarita. its been going on since we were teens.
my others gal pals I call girl, girly, hooker, hoe, loser and they call me by the same

It's all in fun. I had a girlfriend or two that had nicknames for me. I think the experts write it's a sign of affection thats all. One of my friends uses my last name a lot. I am petite so once in a while someone blurts out something with little in it or little miss this or that. I don't mind it. My husband sometimes calls me some word in Dutch that means little doll or princess or something. Although for some reason when he does it I find it irritating since I don't really have that type of personality.